Christmas Kitchen 2010

Have you ever tried to induce a panic attack?

Try assembling a KidKraft kitchen with 8 THOUSAND tiny screws.

We wanted to give Emmy just ONE Christmas gift this year, knowing the grandmas and grandpas were all too ready to bring the rain. And because we're grinchy tiger parents who don't believe in gifts, we only believe in perfect SAT scores and flash card training our baby while she's on the potty with nowhere to HIDE!

Zero waste followers-avert your eyes. The kitchen came in a box containing a ridiculous amount of styrofoam packaging.

The instruction manual--37 pages long. With diagrams that only make sense to diagram makers.

And the one page disclaimer sheet with the 800 number to KidKraft imploring you to "Please, let us help" four times in bold letters.

Very smart on the company's behalf to recognize that unless you're a mechanical engineer, at least 75 of those 8 THOUSAND screws are going to end up thrown across the room followed by a miniature refrigerator door because regular people are not equipped to assemble this kind of trickery.

But in the end, the kitchen came together beautifully. KidKraft corner unit from Costco. Perfect for pint sized chefs who like to cook wearing just a hooded robe and a pair of fluffy boots.

It would be unfair not to mention we actually had to refer to the "Please, let us help" page. Turns out, piece 15 was missing. Construction stopped down. We did a top-down, side to side search of the living room AKA Styro-pocalypse Now.

They sent the piece to our house in two days, free shipping.

Three weeks after putting it all together, Emmy's wandering around the house pushing her little Winnie the Pooh train with a caboose seat. We hear, "Oooh!"

She's lifted the caboose lid, and wouldn't you know? PIECE 15! At some point during the inception of Styro-pocalypse Now, our "assistant" picked up a critical supporting part of the infrastructure and hid it.